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Hello and thank you for using our service. My name isXXXXX and I am a licensed attorney and will try my best to help you. Believe me that I will try my best to give you a solution if one exists, but sometimes the law does not have a good one.

I believe in being very thorough with my answers but I will give you the choice. If you want me to answer just your question specifically, please let me know how many persons including yourself you claim on your income tax returns. If you want to know the dangers or sponsoring someone, then let me know how many persons you claim on your income tax including yourself and also let me know you want to know the dangers.

No. No additional money at all. If you claim only yourself, then you make more than enough money to be a Joint Sponsor for this person. But be warned, the Joint Sponsor will be responsible FOR LIFE to pay back the U.S. government for any means-tested benefit that the sponsored immigrant uses such as welfare, food stamps, etc. If he or she uses none, then the Joint Sponsor does not have to pay anything back. Lately, some crafty attorneys have even been able to get the joint sponsor to support the immigrant at 125% of the poverty line. The responsibility only ends when one of three things happen:

1) The immigrant works 10 years in the U.S. paying U.S. taxes. If they stop at 9.9 years and never work again, the Joint Sponsor is stuck.

2) The immigrant becomes a U.S. Citizen.

3) The immigrant loses Residency for some reason:

a) Being outside of the U.S. for too long.

b) They obtained it through fraud.

c) They commit a serious enough crime.

Divorce does not terminate the responsibility. So just be very careful and understand what you are getting yourself into. Please let me know if you have additional questions and please do not forget to rate my service to you (not the state of the law) as that is the only way that I can get credit for my assistance to you.Even after you rate the service, I can still answer additional questions for you without additional charge.If you do rate me positively, a bonus is always appreciated. If you would like to request me in the future, just go to http://www.justanswer.com/law/expert-guillermosenmartin/ and make sure you type: FOR GUILLERMO on the subject line.Thank you!

Let me make sure you understand my question regarding being a co-sponsor. When the immigration officer looks at my three years tax returns and see that 18k(SS pension is not taxed) only the 6K private pension is taxable. Are you sure because i was told otherwise? thanks

Good point. I receive SSI. I full out form 1040. Line 37 is adjusted gross income in my case it is 9,000. I was told that it has to be about 24,000 in order to be a cosponsor? The paralegal told me that it is to low and that i could not be a cosponsor. I furnished a copy of Form SSA-1099-Social Security statement but it was not good enough.

Then you will not be able to qualify. SSI benefits cannot be used to qualify. I am truly sorry. You can use 1/5th of the value of any assets that you own, but you cannot use SSI to meet the requirements. Here is a link to a good article:

Accordingly, since it is just you that you claim on your income tax return and you are only sponsoring one person, then that is 2 which means you would have to make or have in assets (1/5th the value) or combination thereof, $19,387 per year or more.

Please let me know if you have additional questions and please do not forget to rate my service to you positively (not the state of the law) as that is the only way that I can get credit for my assistance. Even after you rate the service, I can still answer additional questions for you without additional charge. And don't forget that bonuses are always appreciated! Thank you.

I read the article quickly.I am sorry that made a mistake in telling you that i get SSI. I do not get that one! I retired at 62 in order to get retirement pension from Social Security( I worked for 37 years) does this SS pension that I receive is ok for being a cosponsor? Can you e-mail me your answers so I make a hard copy and show the paralegal and can you send your phone# XXXXX she can call you to allay any fear she may have regarding me being a cosponsor? Thanks for you help and will give you a good rating. will wait for answer>

Then yes, you can use your pension to qualify. Unfortunately, I cannot email you the responses, but you can copy the responses and paste them into a Word document, for example. And as far as contacting me directly, we do have additional services that allow for that.

I will tell you that...the things you have to go through to be an Expert are quite rigorous.

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